New ‘Punch-boosting’ technique lets you move 5 times faster than a stimmed Octane

Apex Legends is predominantly a game that is centered around movement. Sharing its lineage with a Titanfall, a game that is largely considered the magnum opus of movement shooters, Apex Legends offers a lot of room for exploring ways to improve your gameplay through creative movement techniques. We've seen it all, from tap-strafing to bunny-hopping and the community has always managed to find ways to make the game more exciting through innovative movement tech.

On that note, an avid Apex Legends player, wrthcrw discovered this interesting movement technique that has caused quite a stir in the Apex community. They call it "punch-boosting" and when done right, it's twice as fast as Octane's movement speed when he's used his tactical. It also replaces the sliding mechanic in-game with something far faster and more fun too. Pretty nifty, right?

Unbeknownst to many Apex Legends players, when you're crouched and melee a surface or terrain that is at a higher elevation than your feet, you get propelled backward in the exact opposite direction at a high velocity. You can practice this in the firing range against the angled surfaces behind the dummies.

While this is basically the gist of it and it can be used in quick combat situations near buildings and stuff, you might be wondering how this can make you move nearly as fast a gravity cannon launch, right?

We're getting there. Simply put, when you're sliding downwards on a steep slope, you need to turn around and punch the surface. This will launch you into the air backwards at a velocity of 1900, making you reach the end of the slope significantly faster than you normally would by just sliding.

To put it into perspective, the maximum base movement speed you can hit while sprinting with your weapon holstered is 299. A gravity cannon on Storm Point will launch you at a velocity of 3,000. And a stimmed Octane runs at a velocity of around 380.

When wrthcrw tweeted about it, she also shared a video guide on it on her YouTube channel. The technique has since been picked up and amplified by popular Apex Legends YouTubers like Mokeysniper, and TheGamingMerchant, who have also made guides and videos on it.

In practice, punch-boosting is quite easy to pull off and is likely to gain more popularity in-game than techniques like tap-strafing, which were far more advanced. All it'll take is a little bit of practice in the firing range, which conveniently offers a long downhill slope to try it on as you enter the arena.

Yes, we all know how Respawn addressed the 'tap-strafing' issue simply by removing it from the game. Like, hey is there a point in learning a new movement mechanic only for it to be removed from the game? The effect that punching a wall or an elevated surface has does seem to be an unintentional inclusion by Respawn, just like the mechanics that made tap-strafing and bunny hopping a possibility.

However, it is important to note that the reason Respawn removed those advanced movement techniques is that they offered an unfair advantage to high-skill players that mastered them. Or at least, that's what they say. They weren't techniques the average player could easily master and would therefore find themselves getting wrecked by someone who knew how to use those techniques.

Unlike those techniques, however, punch-boosting is fairly easy to learn and offers a lot of flexible use-case scenarios including casually traversing the map faster. Advanced players that main legends like Octane, Pathfinder, or Valkyrie will certainly find fancy ways of using this technique but it's still quite accessible to the average player. So here's hoping Respawn doesn't end up being a buzzkill and removing this mechanic. Because it is honestly hella fun!

We're not quite sure on whether or not Respawn Entertainment will get rid of this technique. Our advice to you on this technique is to enjoy it while you can because the method is super-fun and adds a whole new dynamic to your gameplay experience.